In Chapter 6 Conner continues by talking about the next support pattern, the Process of Change, or the mechanisms of human transition. He says that people who adapt more slowly than others have a low tolerance for ambiguity and see life in black and white or yes and no terms. Resilient people, however, realize that change is fluid and that much of their time will be spent in transitions.Conner outlines a three phase transition state first outlined by Kurt Lewin in 1958 which says that there are three states: the present state, the transition state, and the desired state. The present state is the status quo. The transition state is that state of uncertainty where we develop new attitudes and behaviors. This can be a scary time and people often revert back to the old state due to the sense of ambiguity. The desired state is new state. To get through the phases Conner refers back to Charles Darwins theory of survival of the fittest. He says more organizations initiate change than actually successfully sustain it. He says winners are those resilient individuals or organizations who manage change at a speed that allows them effectively implement transition on time and on budget. He says one of the biggest differences of winners compared to losers is tenacity. He says that a burning platform is often a reason that organizations have that tenacity as it is the resolve, or usually a business imperative, that requires them to make a change.A burning platform situation often occurs as a result of already being in pain or due to anticipated pain. If a change is introduced due to anticipated pain then the organization often has more time to make strategic moves. Commitment comes with the resolve. Conner continues by saying that any change not only needs pain, but also a remedy to solve the problem. In order to sell the change it is often necessary to orchestrate pain messages (or messages that generate enough incentive to want to create commitment to the change) as well as approach the change from the hopes, fears, and perceptions of multiple different frames of reference within the organization (e.g. - honor their perceptions of reality).Are you in enough pain to change? Are you approaching the change from the frame of reference of many different people within your organization in order to "sell" it appropriately?

In Chapter Three Conner continues by saying that the rate of change has increased and yet people continue to operate as if this magnitude of change can be managed in the same way as it has in the past. He says that the volume, momentum, and complexity of change is accelerating at an increasing pace. He attributes this to seven fundamental issues:

Faster communication

A growing worldwide population

Increasing interdependence and competition

Limited resources

Diversifying political and religious ideologies

Constant transitions of power

Ecological distress

As a result of these and many changes going on in organizations, Conner says that to deal with all of this change "we have to shift our perceptions towards change and how it is managed." Managers are realizing that they are facing constant change and they are beginning to realize that managing change is a key skill that they need to have in order to flourish in this new environment.In Chapter Four Conner says that managers are often not equipped to deal with the "future shock" or too much change in a short amount of time. He says that during this increased speed of change people don't stop changing, but they become less and less effective on both the job and personal fronts (e.g. - displaying dysfunctional behavior). This results in behaviors such as:

Reduced trust

Defensive behavior

Poor decision making

Increased conflict

Poor communication

Reduced propensity for risk taking

Inappropriate outbursts at the office

Venting job frustration at home

He says that the best way that managers and leaders can increase their success levels even with the increasing levels of change is to increase their level of resiliency and their understanding of human patterns of behavior that occur during change.Do you ever see yourself and/or others in your organization displaying the behaviors above?

"Managing at the Speed of Change: How Resilient Managers Succeed and Prosper Where Others Fail" by Daryl Conner is a book about resiliency and how to critical it is for managing changes in organizations. With the speed of change dramatically increasing these days it is imperative that leaders build of sense of resiliency within then to not only survive, but prosper.So what is resilience? In Chapter One, Conner defines it as "the ability to demonstrate both strength and flexibility in the face of frightening disorder and the internal guidance system people use to reorient themselves when blown off course by the winds of change." He says that resilience is a key skill that can be learned in organizations since we spend so much of our time at work and that leaders can guide their organizations through changes by helping them focus on the change being achievable. Finally, he concludes the first chapter by saying that we each are designed to move effectively and efficiently through change at a unique pace that will allow us to absorb the major changes and this is referred to as the Speed of Change. He says that "when we assimilate less change than our optimum speed would allow then we fail to live up to our potential." So what happens when change happens at a speed that is more than we can handle? Conner says that when people can no longer successfully face change, they begin to display dysfunctional behavior, or what he calls the Beast. The Beast is subconscious behaviors that manifest as a result of perceived negative or positive changes (e.g. - reality not meeting expectations) such as becoming distant, irritability, preoccupation, and lack of productivity. It also decreased our speed of change. The focus of this book therefore, is to offer specific information about the patterns of change and what successful (e.g. - resilient) people do to achieve their change objectives and to move past the Beast.Are you assimilating change at the speed that you are capable of? Are you living up to your potential?

As I am going through a change in my own life (selling my home and moving) it reminds me of the 4 Cs of change that I use with my clients when they are going through a change:

Create a compelling vision - I know I had wanted to move for a while. My place was getting older and I wanted to be in the city where I could be closer to friends and clients. But it wasn’t until I realized that I had to change in order to reach the goals that I truly wanted - to be closer to community that I made the decision to finally move. I now had a compelling reason to move.

Chart a course of action - once I knew I wanted to move I had to determine exactly where I wanted to go, find a place, and then take the necessary steps to sell my current house. I had to take action in order to make my dreams come true.

Challenge the ups and downs that arise - as with any change resistance will arise. For me the house took longer than I expected to sell and there were many challenges in the process of selling it that arose, but I had to keep focusing on the reason I was doing this - to reach my goals and dreams - in order to push through the resistance.

Celebrate - once you move through the resistance and get to the other side than you can celebrate. Celebration is a big part of acknowledging the action you have taken and recognizing the accomplishment of everything you have gone through. I celebrated with friends and family who encouraged me along the way.

What change are you going through? What step in the process are you in and what can you do to keep moving through the change process?

Dr. Cloud finalizes his book “Necessary Endings” by talking about how to tackle internal and external barriers or resistance to change. Here are a few resistance factors:

Incompatible wishes - wishes which go against each other. Maturity comes with the ability to let go of one wish in order to have another.

No attachment to a certain outcome - you have to be able to face losing some things you might want in order to be free to do the right thing.

Medicating thoughts - numbing the anxiety of making a decision or parting with something they are attached to.

The paradox of “whole-vision” - this is the maturity needed to know when to remain invested in a relationship and when to let go of it by seeing the whole picture (positives and negatives).

External resisters such as self-absorbed resisters, threatened resisters, the NoNos - these are all people outside of you (e.g. - in your business or your personal life) who are resisting the change you want to make

Even by getting past the resistance factors change is hard so know that endings are difficult to do and it will be bumpy ride. Feel the grief that comes with the ending. It is a natural process and you are often grieving the investment you made into that person, idea, or object. If you don’t feel the feelings with letting something go then you will remain tethered to it in some way.

So how do you sustain the ability to make a change? If you don’t make changes that a necessary Dr. Cloud says that you begin to get depleted. Noticing that your emotions, finances, relationships, etc are getting depleted will allow you to get the motivation to change.

Overall making necessary endings is all about creating the future that you so desire. It takes courage, commitment, and a vision to move to the place that you want to be. So what do you have to have the courage to let go of in order to create the next step that you so desire? What are you willing to let to go to chase your dream? Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Dr. Cloud continues in Necessary Endings by discussing how to know when to let go of people as this can often be the hardest ending. He says a way to understand this is to diagnose the character of the people. He says that there are three kinds of people and you need to deal with each kind differently:

Wise people - a person who can learn from his own experience or the experience of another, make that part of himself and then deliver results from that experience base. They adjust to the truth and you deal with them by talking to and giving them feedback.

Foolish people - a person who rejects feedback, resists it, explains it away, and does nothing to adjust to meet its requirements. They adjust the truth so they don’t have to do anything different so talking to them about the problem does not help but setting limits and consequences does. Making the foolish person feel consequences is the biggest way to help influence their change.

Evil people - a person who wants to hurt you intentionally and the way to deal with them is to step away and protect yourself.

Dr. Cloud says the way to make a change is to create urgency and this can be done with time and energy. He says there are few strategies to create urgency:

Make the threat to our future as real in our minds as it is in reality

Create “Ending Alliances” - form powerful coalitions of those people who will be influencers of change

Doing these steps helps to make urgent the new normal. What are you doing to ensure that you are assessing whether the people you are working with are the right ones? Are you creating enough urgency to create the changes that you desire. What is one step above that you can implement in order to begin to make the change?

Dr. Cloud continues his discussion in Necessary Endings by describing the the state of being stuck or when we are not able to make endings a natural process. He says that creating an ending may cause some hurt, but it is good pain because it gets you to a whole other level. It can be bad, however, when we get used to the pain and it becomes our new normal. Pain is a signal that something is wrong and action is required. Dr. Cloud suggests that people stay in this pain when they are taking actions of learned helplessness based upon their internal maps.

He says that there are five types of internal maps:

Having an abnormally high pain threshold - putting up with too much “stuckness”

Covering for others - taking on too much responsibility for others

Believing that ending it means I failed - feeling like you need to persevere through everything

Misunderstood loyalty - still feeling loyal to someone even when you have outgrown them

•Codependent mapping - feeling responsible for another person’s pain when the enabling is ended.

Our psychological mapping can influence the way we handle things especially endings. If you have one of these mappings Dr. Cloud says that we can grow past these internal mappings by getting in touch with reality. It is often through the awareness of hopelessness which finally brings people to the reality of the pruning moment.

The first step he says that will motivate you to do what is necessary is recognizing that what you are doing has no hope of getting what you want. So hopelessness gets us near to a place of fearlessness and out of the place of just wishing things would change, but still doing the same thing (e.g. - the definition of insanity).

So how do you know if you are just wishing for something or that there is real hope that it will change? Dr. Cloud says the past is the best predictor. So how do you know if you can trust someone? Again he says focus on what they have done in the past and that will let you know about their integrity and character. But know that they can change if they are involved in a change process, have some structure around that change process (e.g. - coach, mentor, seminar), have some way to monitor these changes, support, and some success. Finally there also has to be some energy to change.

So are you facing your reality right now? Are you seeing things as they truly are or are you still seeing them out of a glass of hope? If so what internal mappings are you holding on to? What sorts of things will help you to internalize the change and want to move on?

“Necessary Endings” by Dr. Henry Cloud discusses the very real phase that every leader must go through in order to continue to grow and take their organizations to the next level - endings. WIth every new opportunity comes the difficult decision to end something else in order to have the ability to live a thriving life in your business or personal life.

Dr. Cloud says that a way to be proactive about endings is called pruning or actively ending things. He says that there are three kinds of pruning:

Pruning of things that are siphoning off resources that could go to something with more promise

Pruning of items that are sick and not going well

Pruning of items which are already dead

In order to prune well Dr. Cloud says that you need to know towards what standard you are pruning. You have to have to a good definition of what you want the outcome to look like and prune towards that. An example would be Jack Welch saying at GE that if a GE business unit could not be one or two in its market then it would be cut. That is a great example of pruning being forward-looking and strategic. Being strategic helps you to stay focused on the end goals knowing that you can let go of things which are not necessary.

As a notion pruning and letting go sounds great, but to do it can be harder for some than others. Dr. Cloud suggests taking a gut check to see how you feel towards endings in order to determine where your internal resistance lies. Second he says to make endings a normal occurrence instead of seeing it as a problem. Then you can align yourself with this process in order to be ready to implement them when the time comes. Every process has seasons of growth, nurturing, endings, etc. It is important to understand the reality of where you are by understanding your strategic focus and knowing the season you are in in order to determine the things that you may need to let go of.

Dr. Cloud hits on a key point here that some leaders are not able to face the reality of their situation and keep holding onto business units or strategies which are no longer working because either they worked so well before or they are having a hard time imagining what they would move towards. What are you holding onto that may be way past its shelf life?

In “The Leadership Challenge” by Kouzes and Posner the fifth practice of exemplary leadership is to Encourage the Heart. Great leaders really bring people together, recognize contributions and celebrate community and relationship building.

Great leaders expect the best from their people and encourage them to step into their own. They also recognize people for their work and go out of their way to ensure that they provide reward and recognition that truly motivates that particular person. They tailor recognition to what that person would like because they take the time to get to know their people. They invest in building strong relationships with their teams and therefore can reward them with what that the employee will truly value.

Good leaders also invest in celebrations. They take the time to create rituals and events which honor progress and special events. They recognize that these are not frivolous events but truly create a spirit of community and demonstrate that they are personally involved.

The leaders recognize that they can work together, but if they can also have fun together then people will bond even more. The more the leader is involved in these celebrations the more that employees will feel engaged with the leader and truly feel connected to him/her.

A great leader encourages the heart of the organization, of the people in the organization, of him/herself be involved in what is going on day to day. Often organizations or leaders don’t focus on the heart and therefore miss the connection. Kouzes and Posner, based upon their research, say otherwise. It is important to focus on the people, getting to know them, and building strong community as this will support a thriving work environment.

Do you invest in the heart of your organization and your people? If not, what can you do especially during this holiday season to change that?

The last part of Switch by brothers Chip and Dan Heath discusses “shaping the path” of change in your organization, business, or life. Shaping the path means creating an environment that encourages change or providing a method by which change can happen.

In Switch the authors describe three ways to shape the path - tweak the environment, build habits, and rally the herd. In tweaking the environment the thought is making the journey easier. What is in the environment, culture, way of working that is making a change hard? One example is making buying books from Amazon easy by having the 1-Click system. All of your information is stored in their database so when you want to buy something you just click once and it is done. Tweaking the environment is about making the right behavior easier and the wrong behavior harder.

The second way is building habits. Habits change over time, but by visualizing doing new actions (or developing action triggers) at a certain time can help shift a habit as well as creating a checklist. Anything that reminds a person to shift an automatic behavior into a new one can help in building sustainable new habits.

Finally the third tool is rallying the herd. This means that change happens when there support and help along the way . It is emulating behavior that others close to you are doing. So if you can get a small group to start exhibiting the change they can impact the rest of the organization.

While these are all interesting ways to encourage change I believe that the Heath brother’s perspective on this process simplifies what it takes to really change. They provide great examples of how things can change and what it takes, but the real process of change happens in the practice of it, through the growing pains of it, and with the support and help of people who have already been through a similar process.

When have you had wins in implementing change in your organization? What did you do to encourage the change and make it so that it is accepted and implemented throughout your organization? What can you do today to begin shaping the path of change?

Monica Thakrar

Monica Thakrar has over 18 years experience in business focused mainly on strategy, change management, leadership development, training and coaching resulting in successful implementations of large scale transformation programs.